She is Everything
by BabyBrown
Summary: Like Gail always says, he needs to stop thinking all together and just live by her word. Cut to one orgasm later and he's panting in agreement.
1. Prologue

_Prologue_

* * *

He should have known they were never going to be a normal couple. Should have known that their relationship was always going to be backwards and chaotic.

There was a plan he created: dating, sex, cohabitation then marriage. He's lived his whole life believing this was the formula for a happy life...and twice this formula has failed him.

Like Gail always says, he needs to stop thinking all together and just live by her word. (_Cut to one orgasm later and he's panting in agreement_.)

They went from zero to sixty within a single moment, ending with what they both assumed was a one night mistake.

Little did they know that a connection was forged that night over warm beer and a bowl of stale peanuts. One moment they were swapping horror stories before "ooey gooey" feelings in the next. (_She claims to have used the term caustically, but he knows better._)

So maybe their relationship did start out backwards...but their relationship is also going to move him forward. It's going to push him closer to the closure he's needed but has always been too afraid to look for.

Gail Peck is going to introduce him to his family.

* * *

_This idea came to me while I was in the middle of a five hour nap. Yeah. I clearly have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I just know that I'm fascinated with Luke's background. This is kind of a testing the waters thingie. I've got a rough outline and 3-4 SUPER ROUGH chapters already written. Not sure how often I'm gonna update or how many chapters are gonna be in this but if this is something you want to read more of, just drop a line and let me know =)_


	2. Chapter 1

**Taking a break from the ABSURDLY AMAZING FEAST OF WORDS that is "Talulla Rising" (a couple days ago it was "The Last Werewolf") by Glen Duncan to finally, FINALLY update this story. **

**Hope it was worth the wait!  
**

**(Fun Fact: this is now 5x the length it was when I thought I was done the first time around.)**

* * *

_Mother Dearest__  
_

* * *

"Luke."

The sound of his name coming from her mouth is the first sign something is wrong. Ever since they decided to continue their relationship (_for lack of a better word - he still doesn't know what they are despite __the constant sleepovers and __the dinners are her parent's_), she now reserves the use of his first name for private moments. At work it's only ever "Callaghan," 'Detective,' 'Sir' or any combination of the three. It helps keeps things professional while on the job and more intimate while off it...although there have been the occasional illicit - read _many -_ role playing activities where enforcement of this rule became understandably lax.

"What's wrong?" He automatically asks, preparing himself for the worst, their chosen professions being what there are.

"I'm fine." She immediately reassures him, knowing how worried he gets when she's out patrolling alone. "I'm actually off duty right now."

Luke frowns and checks his watch. Her shift isn't over for another two hours, after which they then had plans to meet at her place.

"What's going on?" He asks, turning the coffee maker on - one of those ridiculously expensive coffee makers that only makes one cup of coffee at a time. It had been a Christmas gift from Gail, along with a blow-up doll gag gift, who claimed to be irritated over the amount of coffee that went unconsumed in his apartment. (_They deliberately turned a blind eye to what she was really doing; slowly easing herself into his home as well as his heart._)

"Frank called me in. He didn't know how to tell you..." There's a pregnant pause and he gets the craziest urge to hang up the phone. Not one to hesitate with bad news, instead believing it should be like ripping off a band-aid, her silence makes his anxiety skyrocket. Alarm bells ring in his head, warning him he's about to be sucked into a black hole. But if there's anything being with Gail has taught him, it's that curiosity has a way of getting under you skin and taking over the wheel.

"Tell me _what_?" The increasing drip of percolating coffee matches his rapidly escalating heart rate.

"Just...you should get down here." Is all she says, which causes all kinds of horrible scenarios to play in his imagination.

"Gail, what is it?" He asks again, not wanting to be completely blindsided when he arrives at the station._ Oh yeah, he's going._ There's a sigh at the other end of the line and he knows she's about to tell him something she'd rather not...at least she'd rather not over the phone.

"It's your mother." The chill he feels has nothing to do with the breeze coming from the open window. If he had been a dog, he imagines his hackles rising just about now. But he's not, so goosebumps and a sinking pit in his stomach are all his body can manage.

"Luke?"

"Yeah." His throat feels raw - like he's been gargling with thumbtacks.

"She's here...and she wants to meet you."

The steady trickle of already forgotten coffee plays to an empty room.

* * *

"Luke-" Frank starts but Luke cuts him off, his blood singing with adrenaline and apprehension.

"Where is she?" Luke says, his eyes chaotically searching the station as if he'll be able to recognize the woman claiming to be his mother. Truth is he barely remembers her, having been taken away at such a young age. Still, there were some smudgy memories he's failed to repress, assaulting him at the most random moments. Sunlight and laughter hidden behind the more familiar terror and loneliness.

"She's in your office with Gail." Frank says succinctly, Luke already turning his back to walk to his office.

Reaching the door, he again hears the alarm bells ringing in his head. _ You can still get out of here _a voice in his head says. But he pushes it down. Grasping the doorknob, body tensing in preparation, he pushes the door open.

The first thing he sees, like he always does, is Gail sitting behind his desk, still in uniform, hair up in a sloppy ponytail. Normally the sight of her sitting in his chair would've inspired some joke about her obsession with being the dominant one in the relationship, but he's too preoccupied with the other female in the room to bother.

"Luke," Gail stands and says in an extremely soft voice, one he doesn't reconcile with their current location, "this is Kathryn."

The woman claiming to be his mother immediately stands at Gail's introduction, nervousness apparent on her face. The curly blonde hair he remembers playing with as a child, although now sprinkled with silver, falls in frizzy ringlets around her face, _her face, _square_-_shaped, looking deceptively like the picture of a doting mother. _Mother_. He feels it like a kick to the groin.

_This can't be her_ his inner voice yells. Despite knowing her hair, her face is nothing like he remembers. Luke knows memories fade, causing the picture in one's head to fray and distort...but it's the eyes that convince him. The same blue eyes he sees every morning in the mirror are staring right back at him. Older, and definitely more world-worn, but his eyes. Or rather the eyes he got from _her_. The nausea in his stomach confirms what he dreaded in his heart to be true.

This is the woman who gave birth to him. His _mother_.

"Luke..." His name coming from her mouth throws him, sounding so much like the laughing, singing, crying voice in his dreams. She says his name with such reverence and such love that he feels sick. It feels _wrong_. After all she's done, the way she's hurt him, she has no right to say his name like that. Not the way Gail softly murmurs it in their bed (his or hers no longer existed for them; everywhere was _theirs_), his head pillowed on her stomach and her gentle fingers softly sifting through his hair.

"What are you doing here?" A stranger's voice leaves his mouth. Luke can feel Gail's penetrating gaze on him but he doesn't dare look at her. The worry and affection he just knows are on her face would break him. It's too hard for him to accept they are _for him_ when the reason behind his tortured cliche of a childhood is standing right in-front of him.

"I wanted to see you. I wanted-" Hearing her voice is like being burned alive.

"To see if I fell victim to the family legacy?" The fire inside him grew larger with every word. "To see if I became a cracked out junkie who'd sell their kid for a hit?"

The words are sharp, meant to inflict pain, but Kathryn doesn't move a muscle. After the kind of life she's lived, she's probably heard worse.

No, it's Gail who flinches instead, not having really known the story behind his "orphan" status. All Gail knew, all anyone knew really, was that he was placed in the system at a young age. Having researched his own genesis the moment he was allowed access, he eventually realized that it was a miracle he even ever made it to age seven. Because when he was only seven years old, his mother had tried to sell him for a couple grams of meth.

Luckily the dealer his_ mother_ attempted to sell him to was an undercover cop, who didn't hesitate to break his cover to save him. Kathryn was arrested on the spot and Luke was sent to foster care a couple hours later. He never did find out who the cop was, the man who saved his life, but it was because of him that Luke became a detective in the first place.

Kathryn shakes her head, bouncing curls echoing her movement. "I never worried about that. You were such a strong kid. A good kid. I knew you would be alright."

"You knew-" He begins when a bitter laugh bursts out of him unbidden, his body shaking dangerously. This causes Gail, who had been standing quietly behind his desk, to move towards him.

"Luke?" She says cautiously, like she's approaching a wild animal. Her fingers are almost grazing his arm when he finally gets a hold on his emotions.

"Don't." He flinches away from her, knowing that if she so much as touches him that he would fly apart. He turns back to Kathryn, an absurdly _motherly_ concern on her face causing the void in him to pulse painfully.

"How did you even find me?" Years ago he had made sure that his file was buried deep enough that no one could find out about his past. Put so many roadblocks to prevent anyone, _her always her_, from ever finding him. Put so much red tape around it that it bled onto the pages. Being a detective with friends in high places had its perks.

The way Kathryn's eyes dart towards Gail makes him feel sick. It's the same kind of look that happens right before secrets come flooding out. He's seen it enough in interrogation rooms to have an almost clairvoyant sense about it.

For the first time since he entered the room, he makes eye contact with Gail. If anyone else had been confronted with his sudden ice cold gaze, their eyes would shamefully dart away, their hands would guilty twist together.

But this isn't anybody else. This is _Gail_ _Peck_. She's seen him at his best...and was probably about to see him at his worst. Standing completely still, back straight, eyes locked onto his, Gail looks ready for battle.

"You didn't." His voice comes out low and laced with disbelief, the betrayal blatantly obvious in his tone.

"Don't be upset with her." Kathryn immediately comes to Gail's aide, making Luke feel even worse. Not even here for five minutes and she's already turned his world into some macabre version of its former self. Despite every hurtful insult and painful jab thrown behind closed doors, _and there have been many_, Luke and Gail always presented a united front against the world. No matter what, they always had each others back.

"Get out." He tells Kathryn through gritted teeth, which surprisingly, _which_ _thankfully_, she does without a word. Luke barely hears the door close, his heart pounding deafeningly in his ears.

"Gail, what did you do?" Imperceptible to anyone else, he could see the slight shift in her face. A result of countless hours of study. The look of shame for going behind his back to the defiant raise of her chin all made for one unique combination. He knew from experience that even when she was in the wrong, Gail would defend herself till she was blue in the face.

"I called in some favors, my mother knows some people." She tells him. "But I didn't know that Kathryn would actually show up like this." She added the last part in hastily, clutching it like a shield.

"Why?" There was that thumbtack feeling in his throat again.

Her face softened. "I thought it would help."

He can feel the confusion shining on his face. "Help?"

Big blue eyes round and warm with an emotion they've both refrained from saying out loud, but which they knew lived in every touch, stare into him. "Last weekend at my parent's house, you think I didn't notice the way you froze during dinner when my dad asked about your family? You think I didn't notice the _tragically_," despite all efforts to be sensitive, her voice took a mockingly '_Gail_' tone here,_ "_disguised pain beneath the nonchalant brush off? '_Never knew them and don't care to sir.'_ I know emotional trauma when I see it. You're many things Luke, but you're a shit liar."

It's the sadness in her face, the underlying pity, that does him in, makes the anger come roaring back. "How could this possibly help me? I've never talked about her, never even _mentioned_ her. So what the hell would give you the idea that I would want to _meet_ her?"

The flame in her responds to the fire in him, her feet bringing her alarmingly close. "It's_ because_ you never talk about her." She gives him an incredulous look, like he's being intentionally stupid. "Avoiding things doesn't make them go away. Trust me, I've been there." He's momentarily silenced by that, mind flashing back to her kidnapping and hospitalization. _To Jerry's murder_. She had spent so much time avoiding her feelings that it almost consumed her whole. Even without being together, he could sense it. Remembering the last time they had worked alone, the stolen uniform - the way she unexpectedly opened up to him, he made sure he was the one to get her statement.

"Did you ever think I had a good reason to avoid her? That maybe I never wanted to be reminded of how even my own mother didn't want me?" It's this, the cracking in his voice at the end, that causes her face to soften once again, causes his walls to go flying back up.

"Luke, I just wanted to help you get closure." She repeats. It makes him irrationally angry because why would anyone ever want to help him? He's in this world alone. Always has been. Always will be. Seeing Kathryn again reminded him of the cold hard truth he learned before he could read.

"And who are you to make that call? Who are you to decide if I need closure? It's not like we're together. We're just having some _fun_ right? I'm just '_a warm body at night to keep the cold and loneliness out'_." He regrets the words, _her words_, the moment they leave his mouth. Especially when he knows she wasn't quite serious when she said them - used them as a tension breaker when emotions were running high.

Luke knows how hard it is for Gail to show her true feelings, _(it's amazing how fast the curtain is falling behind her eyes to shut him out), _to reveal the soft underbelly beneath all the red lipstick and bite, yet it doesn't stop him from throwing it in her face. It's been a long known problem of his, the disturbingly powerful rage inside him that lashes out in self-defense, even despite the painstaking effort he exudes trying to reign it in.

Well you know what they say, you only hurt the ones you love.

_Love_.

This comically ill-timed realization, that he loves the woman he's just purposely wounded, makes all the anger rush out of him like air out of a balloon.

_Run_ the voice in his head yells.

Without waiting for a response - a yell, a slap, a _something_ - Luke practically runs from the room, not wanting to witness the damage his words have caused.

* * *

After leaving a wounded Gail behind, not to mention his self-respect, he wanders aimlessly, half wishing a bolt of lightning would just strike him down.

He finds himself in a decrepit playground twenty blocks away from the station half an hour later, rain soaking his jacket. The screen on his phone alerts him to a dozen different calls - one from Frank, one from Andy...even one from _Sam. _One glaring absence chills him to the bone. Luke shuts off his phone and removes the battery. This little trick will make it impossible to trace his location with GPS...it'll also keep him from noticing _she_ wasn't calling.

He sits down on one of the two working swings.

"Luke." A voice calls out over the rain causing him to freeze. _How the hell did she find him?_ Turning around, his eyes come in contact with the woman he's spent over thirty years hating. He feels anger, by now it's an old friend, stirring in his gut.

"Did you follow me here? Haven't you done enough damage?" His words do nothing to change the passive expression on her face. Instead, she merely sits down on the vacant swing next to him.

"I don't know if you remember," she purposely ignores his questions, "I mean how could you, you were so little." She sends him a small smile, which causes him to avoid her gaze. He hears her sigh. "I used to take you to this playground." The unbelievability of it, that she once acted like the loving mother of his childhood imagination causes him to look at her sharply. _Out of all the places to end up._ This had to be some major cosmic joke.

Something passes over her face, nostalgia or maybe even guilt, as she looks back at him. Her jaw then tightens in a way he knows all to well.

Because it was something he did too.

"After every arrest, after every social worker would take you away from me, I would promise myself that _that_ would be the last time you ever saw the inside of a police station. I promised myself that I would get my act together and be the mother you deserved. I would then bring you here, where we would spend the whole day playing. Your laughter, which still rings in my ears, was the sweetest music I'd ever heard." A wistful smile appears on her face. "During those moments, we were just a normal kid and his mom playing on the monkey bars. During those moments you might have even loved me."

Luke feels like a noose is being pulled tighter and tighter around his throat, the emotion threatening to choke him.

"That girlfriend of yours...Gail," her voice tore through the haze, "please don't be angry with her. She obviously cares for you and thought she was only helping."

Whether she meant them to or not, her words inspire a fresh onslaught of guilt.

_Don't be angry with her. She obviously cares for you. __Girlfriend. _

For a single sliver of time, he feels like a normal son being scolded by his mother for dishonorable behavior. The feeling is indescribable and something he never thought he'd ever get to experience in his lifetime.

"But I never expected that this," she waved a hand between them "was going to end well."

Luke begins to feel remorse for the way he's treated her. It's not a welcome feeling. Even after everything, how could this woman still have such a powerful hold over him?

"I know that nothing between us will ever be okay and I'll understand if you never want to see me again. I've caused you too much pain." Luke believes in forgiveness and second chances, heaven knows he's asked for both, but he doesn't know if he could ever forgive her. Over thirty years he's spent loving, missing and hating his mother; the painful inner soundtrack of his life, and he knows a couple moments of pity won't magically erase it. There was too much bad blood. An ocean of it.

Still, that doesn't stop the unexpected lance of pain he feels at her words. It's like he was being abandoned all over again.

"Then why bother coming here at all?" For the first time since they've met, which he couldn't believe was only just a couple hours ago, his voice isn't angry or bitter. It sounds a little disappointed, a little childlike...something he never really got to be when he _was_ a child.

"Because I wanted to give you this." Moving closer, she slips a folded piece of paper into his hand. He tries to ignore the shock he feels at her touch. The connection between a mother and child he's never felt before.

"What it this?" It's ridiculous how terrified he was of a small piece of paper.

"An apology. I know I can never make up for what I've done, but I figured I owed you this much."

Finding something in his face, maybe a kind of reluctant encouragement, Kathryn reaches out to him, her hand resting against his cheek. For no logical reason, Luke finds himself leaning into her touch,_ a second too long - a second too short_, before abruptly pulling back. She smiles sadly at him, appearing not to feel hurt by his movement. She stands up, brushing the seat of her pants.

"Goodbye Luke."

Luke watches her walk away with a growing sense of regret, almost calling out for her to stop.

Almost.

But he doesn't.

* * *

"So Callaghan, you gonna ring the bell or just stare at it until it rings itself?" A voice drifts through the cold night. Turning around, he sees Gail standing behind him holding a heavy black plastic bag, the slight breeze freeing strands of yellow hair from her ponytail.

For the past hour, he's been standing at the entrance to her apartment building, finding himself unable to press the button that would bring him closer to the comfort he's desperately yearning for. Turns out she wasn't even home. _What if he's already lost her?_

"What are you doing out alone this late?" An eye roll lets him know that any kind of overprotective macho talk is not going to be accepted...even if he feels justified considering her new apartment was not in an entirely safe neighborhood. He would know, he just closed a case on a home invasion ending in a double homicide only two blocks away.

It's a diversionary tactic, he _knows_, but he can't help it. Not when he's got the foreboding feeling she's about to tell him to take a hike.

"I really don't think you have the right to ask me that." She replies, an emotionless voice behind an even more emotionless face. Luke looks down at his feet, unable to look her in the eyes. Apparently this is also the wrong thing to do.

"You know, I didn't like your strong and silently wounded schtick when we were sneaking around everyone's backs and I like it even less now." She's referring to the four months when he was in a constant state of guilt (especially in Chris and Andy's presence); referring to the four months before they said '_Fuck what everyone else thinks.' _

Honestly, all resistance was futile when Gail Peck wanted something...and she wanted _him_. He just hopes she still does. Luke forces himself to look up, to look at the face he's spent months falling in love with.

"I'm sorry." The words don't feel like they're enough. How could they be?

"Keep going." She says, giving him her patented '_Gail Glare Stare_.'

"Seeing her after all these years, it was like...like I was that seven year old kid again, still waiting for his mother to come back to him, wondering what he did to make her go away." He inhales a ragged breath. "I've spent so much time and energy trying to distance myself from my past, from _her_, then to suddenly have her right in front of me...it was too much. So I took it out on you when I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

Luke takes a step towards her, taking it as a good sign when she shows no sign of retreating, reaches out towards her. His hand gently wraps around her wrist, feels the soft flesh yielding beneath his fingertips. In this moment, it feels like the entire world is holding it's breath. He knows he is. It feels like an eternity passes before she finally opens her mouth.

"I had to go to the store. Get some supplies." Air rushes out of his lungs. Her answer is practically the verbal equivalent of an olive branch.

She went to the _store_ to get _supplies_. For the first time all day, he feels the pressure in his chest begin to lessen. If she had gone to the store, _that_ store, the only other place besides the dentist that reduces him to tears (metaphorical ones obviously), it meant she believed their earlier plans were still in motion. It meant she still wanted him. It meant she already forgave him. He had no idea what to do with that kind of loyalty.

"How did you know I would show up?" He ignores the pressure building behind his eyes. ('_Metaphorical tears my _ass_,'_ she would say if she could read his mind.)

"I didn't...but," the look on her face is surprisingly vulnerable, "I hoped you would." This rare showing of emotions, of the feelings he knows she rarely allows out of her Pandora's box, makes him feel like even more of a tool for his earlier behavior.

"Gail-" She cuts him off before he can finish.

"Look, I'm not gonna pretend to know how or what you're feeling, but I'm here. Despite what everyone says, I _can_ be sensitive. I took a class or two at the academy." She grins impishly at him. It's this, the sweet and sour banter, that makes him realize what he almost ruined today. Makes him realize that he never wants to be without it.

"I know." Thinking they were finally out of the woods, the very lonely woods, she suddenly sighs and beings to shift on her feet, almost as if she's nervous. Luke raises an inquisitive eyebrow. When she sees the unspoken question in his eyes, she huffs angrily and throws a hand up.

"I guess I'm sorry too." The words sound like it's physically painful for her to say. "I shouldn't have gone snooping into your past. I just wanted to help. I know my mother and I don't have the best relationship, but she's still always been there." Gail rolls her eyes, "even if it's with a patronizing word or disappointed glance." Her face becomes somber again. "Still no matter what, I always know she has my back. I guess I wanted that for you too."

The smile on his face feels foreign, almost like he's never really smiled before now. "You're just a big softy."

Gail doesn't miss a beat. "If you tell anyone, I'll tell everyone you still sleep with a nightlight."

Wrapping his arms around Gail, Luke suddenly feels a sense of fullness. The void he's spent his whole life living with is slowly starting to close. At first he thought Andy would be the answer. It's why he proposed to her after only six months. He knew that she would always be faithful and it made him feel secure knowing that she would always be there to love him, but he knows now that it never would have lasted. Not when he realized he had a twisted kind of hope that Jo would return, barely hesitating to destroy everything for her when she did. But he knows now, that he was just trying to create the family he's never had. When he acknowledged that, it was like the pressure he's been feeling his whole life was gone.

Gail also helped in her own unique way, filling a majority of the void with her loud personality and big heart.

The realization he made earlier, the terrifyingly wonderful truth that he has fallen long and hard for the petite blonde in his arms, suddenly rears it's nosy head. But this time instead of running from it, he embraces it with open arms.

"I love you." The words tumble from his mouth in such a rush, Gail fails to understand him at first.

"Use your words Homicide."

"I love you." This time he makes sure to say the words slowly, savoring the way they sound. It's not as if he's never said them to a woman before, but it's the first time he feels the words radiating in his chest, dissolving into his bloodstream. It's the first time he feels the urge to repeat them until they no longer make sense, knowing that no words could ever do justice to what he's feeling.

To his surprise, Gail didn't even blink. "How could you not? I mean, have you met me?" But then he feels her arms tighten around his middle, the nervousness and self-doubt humming beneath her skin, never quite believing she's worthy. He knows it's there because it's in him too. "But despite my better judgement, I guess I love you too."

Pulling away from her, he hooks a finger beneath her chin, not to tilt her head upwards, the height difference between them took care of that, but because he needed to feel her skin against his. Leaning forward, Luke watches as Gail closes her eyes, his own sliding closed when their mouths meet. Their lips get caught together, both chapped and dry from the cold. Luke envelops her top lip with both of his, moistening it with a gentle lick of his tongue, repeating the process with her bottom lip. Besides getting "supplies," she must have also gotten some candy because he can still taste the artificial cherry flavoring in her mouth.

Tilting his head to the right, their noses doing the awkward dance noses do, Luke pulls her closer, one hand on the side of her neck, the other wedged deep against her lower back. Reconnecting their lips, he breathes her in completely. Her free hand grabs at his waist, fingers curling inward like she wants to dive inside him. It's a feeling he knows well.

"Ahem." A voice brings them out of their blissful reverie. Pulling apart, lips smacking loudly into the night, they come to face with an elderly woman and her dog.

"May we get through? It's a bit cold out here." She says with a pointed look.

Gail covers her face, partly to hide her reddening face and partly to keep back the laughter he knows is coming. Luke steers them to the side, leaving room for the old woman and her dog to enter the building.

"Have a good evening." He says, holding the door open for them, trying hard to not start laughing himself.

Without a word, they are honestly too close to cracking up, Luke takes the bag from Gail and slides his hand into hers. Heading in first, Gail pulls Luke in out of the cold.

* * *

_For now, the small slip of paper remains forgotten in his pocket. Remains forgotten as he spends the rest of the night apologizing to Gail. Remains forgotten as he makes sure to replace their past pain with current pleasure._

_Tomorrow, this seemingly harmless note will reveal two missing parts of the puzzle that is his life. _

_Tomorrow, the words on this paper will change everything._

_But that's tomorrow._

_Tonight it's just him and Gail...and their fun bag of supplies._

* * *

**THAT'S IT. I CAN'T LOOK AT THIS ANYMORE. (I hope I got all the mistakes.)**

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated! =)**

**Not sure when the next part will be up, but probably sooner than this one now that I've ironed out a lot of details.**


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